Educational Science

As the largest land carnivores currently on the planet, polar bears are fearsome predators and the masters of their Artic domain. But do these hulking animals also have a softer side toward each other, or are their mating behaviors just as cold and unforgiving as their frozen habitat? Polar bears...

Canadian Polar Bear Hunt Continues, Despite Extinction Threat (Op-Ed)

Zak Smith is an attorney for the Marine Mammal Protection Project at NRDC. This Op-Ed is adapted from one that first appeared on the NRDC blog Switchboard. Smith contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Most people don't know that Canada is the only country where...

In the blue light of the Russian Arctic, scientists captured a rare photo of a polar bear approaching a musk ox carcass Thursday (March 27). Joel Berger, a senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society and chair of wildlife biology at the University of Montana, posted the picture on Twitter...

Polar Bears on Google Maps! Street View Comes to the Arctic

Google Street View has taken viewers to the Amazon, the Galapagos, and now, the Canadian Arctic — the home of polar bears. Starting today, on International Polar Bear Day (Feb. 27), people around the world will be able to see the bears in their natural habitat. The Google Maps team...

Polar Bears on Thin Ice, Arctic Expedition Finds

An expedition to the islands of Svalbard, Norway, to study how rising temperatures and melting sea ice are affecting polar bears concluded Monday (April 21). Over the 10-day trek, researchers outfitted female bears with satellite tracking collars that will send back data, giving researchers a picture of how shrinking sea...

Amazing Photos: Polar Bear Expedition in Svalbard, Norway

Polar Bear on the Ice (Image credit: Brutus Ostling/WWF-Canon.)In April, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Norwegian Polar Institute (NPI) and Canon photographers spent nearly two weeks on a research expedition to the islands of Arctic Norway. A former U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker ship served as their research vessel. Through aerial...

Squee! Baby Polar Bear Takes First Steps (Video)

In this ridiculously cute new video from the Toronto Zoo, a 2-month-old baby polar bear takes his first shaky steps. Weighing just 1.5 lbs. (700 g) when he was born on Nov. 9, 2013, the cub has grown to 9.7 lbs. (4.4 kg), according to the zoo. Among his other...

In Images: Polar Bears' Shifting Diet

Changing habitat (Image credit: Hansruedi Weyrich)As the climate has changed, polar bears have shifted their diets in response, several new papers published in 2013 showed. Melting sea ice (Image credit: Evgeny Kovalev spb | Shutterstock)Declines in sea ice have meant that polar bears in the western Hudson Bay cannot hunt...